Follow the author of this article

1. Santa Cruz del Isolte, Colombia

This 2.4 acre island off the coast of Colombia is home to a staggering 1,247 people, making it around four times more densely populated than Manhattan.

The first permanent residents, attracted by a lack of mosquitoes, arrived around 150 years ago. There are now 90 homes, some of which extend out over the sea to make up for the lack of space, two shops, a restaurant and a school, attended by around 80 children.

Despite a lack of running water and other amenities, residents paint and idyllic picture of life on Santa Cruz del Isolte. “We don't have violence, we don't need police, we all know each other and we enjoy our days. It's a glorious life,” 66-year-old Juvenal Julio told the Toronto Star back in 2013.

2. Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong

Area: 1.32 square km

Population: 86,782

Density: 66,755 per square km

Found just off Hong Kong Island, and linked to it by a four-lane road bridge, Ap Lei Chau – also known as Aberdeen Island – is covered in high-rise housing. Places of interest include the 18th century Hung Shing Temple and the 8th Estate Winery, the first in Hong Kong. And there is at least one spot to escape the crowds – Mount Johnston, the highest point on the island at 643 feet above sea level. Our Hong Kong expert recommends visiting the vast Horizon Plaza shopping centre, as well as trying the Young Master Ales brewed on the island.

Ap Lei ChauCredit:
ALAMY

3. Migingo Island, Kenya

Area: 0.002 square km

Population: 131

Density: 65,500 per square km

At less than half an acre, about half the size of a football pitch, this island in Lake Victoria – the subject of a territorial dispute between Kenya and Uganda – is the smallest on our list. It was once home to just a single eccentric fisherman, but word of his remarkable and lucrative hauls of Nile perch got out and many more soon joined him.

“Landing on the rocky tail of Migingo it is hard to see it as a place where fortunes are made,” wrote Daniel Howden in a fascinating report for the Independent. “It has the rough edges of a frontier town, with tiny pathways separating bars, brothels and doss houses; prostitutes and their young children rub shoulders with shopkeepers, fishermen and police in the scant space in between. The welcoming committee is a muscular man in combat trousers and a striped shirt, open to the waist, who introduces himself only as Victor. He is the Ugandan police commander, he says, and will need to see a passport.”

4. Fadiouth, Senegal

Area: 0.15 square km

Population: 9,000

Density: 60,000 per square km

Linked to the mainland by a narrow wooden bridge, Fadiouth (part of the village of Joal-Fadiouth) is almost entirely covered with clam shells. Inhabitants have been harvesting the molluscs for centuries, so discarded shells are literally everywhere - they have even been incorporated into the island’s architecture. A key trading post in the colonial period, the island is now reliant on tourism (and clams, obviously).

Clam shells cover the cemetery in FadiouthCredit:
ALAMY

5. Malé, The Maldives

Area: 1.952 square km

Population: 92,555

Density: 47,416

The capital of the Maldives, but rarely visited by tourists, who land at a nearby island airport and then head straight to their resort, Malé is where around a quarter of the country’s residents call home. It has been the centre of numerous political protests in recent years following the overthrow of former president Mohamed Nasheed in 2012.

MaléCredit:
Aleh Mikalaichyk/Aleh

6. Ebeye, The Marshall Islands

Area: 0.360 square km

Population: 15,000

Density: 41,667 per square km

One of the most populous of The Marshall Islands, Ebeye is home to 15,000 residents, more than half of which are under the age of 18. Some inhabitants are refugees or descendants of refugees that were forced from the Bikini Atoll and the Rongelap Atoll thanks to nuclear weapons testing by the United States. It’s barely better than their contaminated former homes.

“More than 10,000 people are crammed into a tenth of a square mile of livable space on Ebeye,” wrote Dan Zak in a report for the Washington Post last year. “The island is crawling with children. A third of its residents are unemployed and over half are under 20 years old. Government buildings stand on crumbling stilts with exposed rebar, the concrete spalled away by a constant salty wind off the ocean. Raw sewage pools in the streets. There are occasional outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever. The hospital has an on-again-off-again insect problem.”

7. Ilha de Moçambique, Mozambique

Area: 1.5 square km

Population: 54,315

Density: 36,210 per square km

“It’s hard to believe that tiny Ilha de Moçambique preceded Maputo as the country’s capital,” wrote Sue Watt for Telegraph Travel in 2015. “Just two miles long and 600 yards wide, the island’s diminutive size belies its historic significance. For 400 years, this northern Mozambican island was Portuguese East Africa’s capital, a legacy of its strategic position along ancient Arab and Portuguese trading routes, with affluent gold, ivory and slave merchants frequenting its shores. This Unesco World Heritage site is dominated by the 16th-century Portuguese fort of São Sebastião. The oldest complete fort in sub-Saharan Africa, it was never conquered despite the best efforts of mighty Dutch, British and Omani flotillas.

“Below the fort’s ramparts lies the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere, the Church of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte. Serene and simple, it looks out to sea with whitewashed walls and glassless windows in the shape of crosses.

“When I first came here five years ago, Stone Town, as the area is now known, seemed sad and sleepy, a place of faded glory imbued with an exotic concoction of Asian, African and European heritage. Reminiscent of Lamu, or Zanzibar years ago, its history of slave trade wealth seeped out of once grand buildings gradually crumbling from creeping neglect.

“Today, it’s a different story. Roads are paved, street lights shine at night and charismatic buildings such as the Hospital, the Old Customs House and the Governor’s Palace, which houses the island’s fascinating museum, are all being sensitively restored.”

8. Manhattan, New York City

Area: 59.47 square km

Population: 1,634,795

Density: 27,489

The best known islands on our list, Manhattan is home to Wall Street, the headquarters of the United Nations, and four of the most visited attractions in the world: Times Square, Central Park, the Empire State Building and Grand Central Station.

9. Salsette Island, India

Area: 619 square km

Population: 15,111,974

Density: 24,414

You might not have heard of Salsette Island, but you’ll no doubt be familiar with the biggest metropolis that lies on it: Mumbai.

The art historian and television presenter Dan Cruickshank rates it as one of his favourite cities. He says: “I love Indian cities for their vitality and I particularly like Mumbai because there are two aspects to the city: it boasts some wonderful Victorian-style Gothic architecture, reflecting the aspirations of 19th-century Europeans in the city, but it also has the most amazing Hindu temples. Plus it’s India’s commercial hub and home to Bollywood.”

10. Île Saint-Louis, Paris

Area: 0.11 square km

Population: 2,465

Density: 22.409 per square km

One of two natural islands on the Seine (the other being the Île de la Cité), Saint-Louis was once where Parisians stocked wood and grazed cattle. It is now an elegant residential neighbourhood, with a spattering of hotels, restaurants and shops, as well as the impressive Eglise Saint-Louis-en-l'Île. An influx of foreign buyers has brought controversy in recent years, however, with a Qatari prince’s plans for one of the island’s grandest mansions, Hotel Lambert, the former home of Chopin and Voltaire, causing particular outrage.

Best of the rest

Other notable overcrowded islands include Lilla Essingen, one of 14 islands that make up Stockholm (12th on the list), Vasilyevsky Island, the home of St Petersburg, in Russia (14th), Hong Kong Island (17th), New York’s Roosevelt Island (19th), Venice’s main island (23rd) and Portsea Island, home to Portsmouth (29th).